Donna Ramey (Hospice, United Way, Affordable Housing) Retires from Savings Bank of Danbury

Donna Ramey put in her 40 years in banking, of course, that being her career. She retires from that on the Friday before Christmas.

Meanwhile, the organizations and people she helped for the last 40 years are hoping with some confidence, she will pick up her numerous community service activities again after a break.

Ramey said she sacrificed a lot of time with her family by working in banking for 40 years, and she'd like to reconnect. She'd also like to pick up the guitar, which she gave up when she made a choice 40 years ago, guitar? banking?

Hal Wibling, president of the Savings Bank of Danbury, joined the bank at about the same time as Donna's in 1993. Back then, the bank had no computers. It had a main bank and a branch then, one type of mortgage and no commercial lending. Today, it has branches in 13 communities, a full range of residential and commercial products, and Wibling and Ramey brought the bank into the 21st Century.

"It was a bank with very limited products," Wibling said. "Our charge from the board was to make it a full service bank meeting the needs of the community and to create a commercial department. Donna has been at the forefront of a lot of that."

Wibling said they could talk over issues and often did. He said he will miss her, and although Ramey is younger than Wibling, she retired first. He mentioned that twice.

"I know she'll be back," said Mark Nolan, the managing partner of Nolan Enterprises, which operates apartments for the elderly and for low, moderate and market-rate renters in Danbury. Nolan also works with several non-profits, and he said he's already asked Ramey to work with him on those projects.

"We're always on the same page," Nolan said. He first met Ramey when she worked at Union Trust, and they worked together building apartments in Danbury. "Donna Ramey has been a pillar of leadership for the last 35-plus years."

When Nolan wanted to renovate the Seifert Armory on Library Place into apartments, the Savings Bank of Danbury and Ramey helped.

"That was a $250,000 project. You know whose name was on the bottom of the page? Donna's," Nolan said. "She made it easy to sell it to the board, because she understood it."

Nolan said Ramey had a banker's mind for a business deal, but a love of affordable housing. She could take Nolan's idea and make sure the numbers worked.

"Lending is what I've been doing for all of my career," said Ramey, 62, of Newtown. "Affordable housing is my passion."

Ramey said in the 1990s she wanted to retire early when another well-known Danbury volunteer Violet Manion retired.

"Violet was one of my mentors. I've always set my goals. It's important in life to do that," Ramey said. "I wanted to retire when I was young enough and healthy enough to enjoy it. My life has been my work."

Some of that work involved the Fairfield County Housing Development Fund.

"Donna is very smart, very experienced and very wise," said Joan Carty, executive director of the fund. "This hard to find together in one person. She's always been for me someone I could rely on for excellent advice."

Another group that Ramey worked with was Regional Hospice.

"She was one of my original presidents 20 years ago," said Cynthia Roy-Squitieri, president of Regional Hospice of Western Connecticut. "She always putting others before herself. She gives so much."